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The Financial Services and General Government appropriations bill for FY 2026 passed the House of Representatives yesterday and now moves to the Senate where passage is also expected. The bill sets spending levels for several agencies supporting regional innovation, economic development, and investment. Foremost are the Treasury and Small Business Administration; selected highlights are provided below.
All too often, jobseekers and employers seem to exist in non-compatible realities. While jobseekers flood the job market with descriptions of their generalized skills in communication, leadership, and problem-solving to fill various roles in different sectors, employers are looking for the more specific skills that will get the job done, say the authors of a report from the Wharton School and Accenture. And they propose that AI is accelerating this shift from a role-based economy to a skills-based economy.
With 2025 behind us, and some time for the data to stabilize, we can look back at VC activity and try to understand what it means for TBED efforts going forward. The VC storyline of 2025 should be familiar to anyone who has been following investment news. Record funding rounds, huge amounts of capital deployed, questions of an AI bubble. Where amongst the big flashy lights of AI mega-deals do we find the subtlety and nuance that informs TBED investor activity and policy? Looking closely at historical trends and segmenting the data by deal size highlights what most companies seeking funding face and points to potential outcomes for 2026.
Richard Bendis has significant experience building biotech clusters in formerly “flyover” regions (e.g., places that lack the infrastructure to support tech-based entrepreneurs and companies). Around 2009-2010, he was giving a presentation at the National Academy of Sciences in Washington, D.C., on how to build these regions around an industry-driven private-public partnership. After the talk, someone from Johns Hopkins approached him and said they had been trying—with little success—to build a biotech cluster in Maryland. They asked him to come to Montgomery County, Maryland, the epicenter of the region's life sciences industry.
Higher Education Research and Development (HERD) expenditures grew in every state between Fiscal years (FYs) 2010 and 2024, rising 92% nationally over the 15-year period. Adjusted for inflation, five states and Puerto Rico instead experienced a real decline in HERD expenditures. Despite this broad growth, HERD expenditures remain highly concentrated, with five states having accounted for nearly 40% of all higher education R&D expenditures nationwide in FY 2024.
Leadership in Congress has developed a plan to move all the FY 2026 budget appropriations bills before the end of the month. First up in a “compromise” package that includes, among other agencies, appropriations for the Departments of Commerce, NASA and the National Science Foundation. 1/8/26 UPDATE: The House passed the package on the afternoon of Jan 8. Instructions accompanying the bill provide insights into how Congress would like to see the agencies use the funding. Selected highlights for the TBED community are provided below.
The new year begins with a layer of both fiscal and political uncertainty. For at least 18 states, it will be a year of change in political leadership. After several years of continuous revenue growth, states are crafting their Fiscal Year (FY) 2027 budgets amid slower growth, rising costs, and heightened unease. At the same time, the 2026 gubernatorial campaign season also begins in earnest. More than three dozen governorships are on the November ballot, and at least 18 states (see map below) expect to elect a new governor due to an incumbent either being term-limited or choosing not to run for re-election.
The Maine Technology Institute’s core mission is to use innovation to spur the development of new products, processes, and companies that strengthen the state’s economy. Finishing its 25th year of operations, MTI solidly illustrates how a sustained, focused yet flexible and creative strategy can deliver this mission. MTI has disbursed $387 million across 4,350 distinct projects throughout Maine since its founding, and that funding has leveraged over $2.2 billion in private sector matching investment.
State R&D incentive programs such as tax credits are widely used to stimulate innovation, attract investment, and support long-term economic growth. But how do we know which programs truly increase R&D activity rather than simply subsidizing what companies would have done anyway? A recent article by Elizabeth Gray and Alison Wakefield of The Pew Charitable Trusts discusses the role that rigorous evaluation plays in assessing program performance, refining incentive design, and informing better policy decisions.
Higher Education R&D expenditures jumped 8%, or nearly $9 billion, from fiscal year (FY) 2023 to 2024, reaching an all-time high of over $117 billion, reveals new Higher Education R&D (HERD) survey data. The funding sources of HERD expenditures remain proportionally unchanged from the prior year, with all sources increasing, and the federal government ($5 billion) and institution funds ($2.5 billion) accounting for the largest dollar increases.
Adjusted for inflation, overall HERD expenditures increased by 5%—the second largest year-over-year increase in the past decade—while all sources of funds except business increased.
The proposed Biomanufacturing Excellence Act of 2025 would establish a single National Biopharmaceutical Manufacturing Center of Excellence within the U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). H.R. 6089 was introduced by Rep. Chrissy Houlahan (D-PA) with bipartisan cosponsors and paired with a Senate companion bill (S. 3188) led by Senators Chris Coons (D-DE) and Ted Budd (R-NC). It authorizes $120 million in FY 2026 for NIST to conduct a competitive process to select one non-federal entity to build and operate the center. Eligible applicants include public-private partnerships, institutions of higher education, and multi-institution consortia. Because only a single awardee will be chosen, the proposed legislation likely sets up what is likely to be a stiff competition among many states which have made life sciences and manufacturing key elements of their innovation strategies.
Serious birdwatchers know one finds the most variety in species where habitats collide, on the edges of domains. This also holds true for innovation, discovery, and scientific disciplines. Recent research shows that institutions that support interdisciplinary teams with strategic investments, institutional alignment, and collaborative ecosystems are more likely to create innovations that lead to patents, products, and companies.
